A Post With Two Topics

[deird_lj]

Please comment on the topic you prefer to discuss...


For Writers

Do you guys often write stories where you already know how it's going to end before you start?
Not just generally knowing the plot - I'm talking the specific line that's going to be the last line in the fic.

I've just been thinking about my own writing, and I realised that, in fact, I often know the exact last line before I write the story. Mostly this means I'll end up figuring out what on earth the plot is just because I've got this last line sitting there, and I want to know how to get to it.

Does this happen to anyone else? Or just me?

(Bonus points if you can guess which of my stories started that way.)

______________________________________

For Unaccomplished People

I just found out that the guy who sits across from me at work - who is two years younger than me - is about to buy a house.

I am feeling very disheartened and unaccomplished.

Please, regale me with your stories of how you didn't learn how to tie your shoes until you were ten, or never ever learned how to cook - so that I can laugh at you share your pain.

Comments

[deird1]

I tend to know the ending, but not the exact last scene, more the big scene I'm building up towards.

So, sort of half what I'm talking about?


(Do you catch the bus a lot?)

[deird1]

1) Ooh. Lucky. I hardly ever actually know the scene.

2) Wow. As an Aussie, the concept of not learning how to swim when you're five is just completely weird for me.

[deird1]

They really are.

[deird1]

Why, thankyou. I try.

[deird1]

Given that most people are answering both questions, I'd say being a writer and being unaccomplished certainly aren't mutually exclusive...

Making a white sauce is one of the few things I can do in the kitchen. (Mind you, I always get the quantities wrong and end up making the wrong amount.)

So... you'd disagree with the phrase "just like riding a bike - once you learn how you never forget"?

[deird1]

Stoves are great and mighty, and should be feared. Bow before the mighty stove of DOOM!

Funnily enough, the longer a story is, the more I'm likely to know the exact ending. (Mind you, "long" for me is "over two thousand words".)

[deird1]

1) Well, your agonising tends to work out pretty well, usually...

2) Eep. I think that'd leave me pretty dubious about bikes too.

[deird1]

So... lots of catching the bus?

And - yay! Someone else like me!

[deird1]

Yeah, I have a thing with lightbulb changing. It's so high up, and there's nothing to hold onto up there!


write mysteries without plotting up until halfway - then look at the mess you have and decide what were clues all along.

Oooh... what a fascinating idea...

[deird1]

You seem to be in good company, driving-wise, going from the other comments...

And wow. Already having the epilogue to that long-as-anything story before you started? Well done!

[deird1]

Wow, really? That would have been very different.

[deird1]

So... you start writing the middle and then go back and figure out the start? Oooh... how fascinating...

[next_to_normal]

1. Heh, thanks. It's hardest when it's a happy ending, because it always seems too sappy or corny - which is another reason I dislike happy endings, lol.

2. To this day, I don't know how it happened. I rode into the fence, and when I opened my eyes, I was under the fence, with the little metal wire thingies stuck in my arm. I had to get a tetanus shot.

[quinara]

Well, sometimes I start at the beginning, especially if the fic doesn't have that many scenes, but I usually won't have decided that's the beginning yet and tend to end up changing it in one way or another. I mean, if I'm writing post-NFA or something, I often won't have worked out the specifics of the world I'm in until I've done a couple of scenes, so I can't write the beginning because I don't know what the audience needs to be aware of. (By the end I will usually know far more than the reader can find out without scrutinising every word people say, but that's another story...) But then I'm a ridiculously slow writer sometimes, in that bits of stories will sit on my computer for ages before getting turned into something else - I think my seasonal_spuffy story for this round is something of a personal record, because its first incarnation is over two years old now!

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Yes, maybe. But I quickly realized that I don't have skills to create such a complex narrative. Besides, I got invested in the Xander/Faith pairing and I just couldn't screw up their chances so royally :)

I heard rumors that Joss' "plan A" for Xander was making him Glory's human host (if season 5 would have been the last one, Joss intended to kill off practically all the main cast). I often wonder how Joss planned keep the character's integrity with Xander-as-Glory plot twist.

OTOH, I have a set-up and a perfect last line for a season 6 fic - but I can't write a story for several years. I tried to develop it as a Spuffy fic, then as a Spike/Dawn fic, then as Spike-and-Xander fic. Yet the story resists in each case.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

So, sort of half what I'm talking about?

Pretty much. I tend to build around a line from the climax, so sometimes the ending ends up a bit differently then I orriginally planned it.

Do you catch the bus a lot?

I live in a pretty small town, where I can go everywhere by bike, most of the time it's faster than by car because I don't have to deal with traffic jams. But in the winter, yes I do catch the bus a lot.

[dipenates.livejournal.com]

I almost always know the emotional arc/concept going into a story, but rarely the specific last words.

This. In fact, I completely suck at endings and rewrite them a million times.

Although I do write and rewrite whole scenes in my head. In fact, I very rarely write things in the order that they ultimately end up in.

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to get in the habit of outlining my stories before I jump into them, cause I have zillions of half-started fics that just sit around cause I don't know what all this building-up is building up to. So sometimes I figure out the end then, and sometimes that changes anyway. And sometimes I just roll with it.

I get specific lines sometimes, but not really the last one in particular, and not at the beginning. I've gotten titles at the beginning that I then find a way to incorporate into the story, like with Sundays at Nine and to go on.


Oh, ho ho, I have too many tales of how sad I am. Let's see: a lot of them have to do with how overprotective my parents are and aren't really my fault. Like I had a baby monitor in my room until I was like 10. Yeah. There's a reason I'm like this.

Also my parents wouldn't let me use the stove for a loooong time, and then basically never taught me how to use it so cooking and me are kind of fail. Unless it's a simple recipe and doesn't really involve ovens or stoves.

Don't worry, hon, compared to me you probably look like...some really accomplished person. :D

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

We're ALL like you...

/creepy

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

Omigod, that's awful. *shivers*

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

I learned how to iron doing sets for the plays in high school, cause we had to iron out these big pieces of cloth that would go up in various places so they didn't look all wrinkly from storage.

Of course, I ended up burning myself quite often because we'd be ironing them on top of blankets on the floor since they were too big for ironing boards, and I would rest it on my knee or something. So I still fail!

Also I've never ironed since. There's no point, really.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I grew up in NYC. No one drives.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Joss was actually planning to kill off the cast? I am so glad he didn't go there. I don't think I would have forgiven him. (I've never heard this particular deal. I have heard that originally he planned to have Xander being taken over by the first evil in the last season. Apparently, Xander has dodged several bullets.)

[next_to_normal]

And the worst part was that my kindergarten crush was watching...

(The same fellow, in fact, who recently assisted my mother with not setting our house on fire. Poor guy has witnessed many of my family's most embarrassing moments.)

[next_to_normal]

I'm trying ningloreth's recommendation to write mysteries without plotting up until halfway - then look at the mess you have and decide what were clues all along.

Oh my God, I can't help but think I would screw that up royally. But it's an intriguing theory...